Branch's best seasons came as the preferred target of Tom Brady, of course. The quarterback was asked Tuesday if he's kept in touch with the veteran wide receiver, who's been out of football all season.

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"I keep in touch with a lot of guys," Brady said in quotes distributed by the team. "Over the years I've had a lot of great friends that I've been lucky enough to play with on this team that are just great people and you're always wishing the best for those people."

It's hard to imagine Branch unloading a lot of valuable intel this week. Brady isn't putting his focus on how Branch could change things.

"That's for our defense," he said. "They're going to worry about all those guys, prepare for all those guys. And that's part of guys changing teams and so forth. It's nice to see a guy get an opportunity, especially one of your great friends."

If Branch truly is a "great friend," he could go down a more devious route and feed a bunch of bogus strategy to Colts coaches. This would be a hard move to defend, but an easy one to admire.